The Reverend

If anyone in Socal has a welded version of the GFL bar that isn't scratched up or anything and you're having issues with fitment... I've got my flat-black powdercoated Elda bar in perfect condition and I'd be willing to trade for a GFL bar straight out (the GFL is slightly lighter and I don't ever remove the harness bar or diagonal from mine, so I'd rather have welded than my current bolt-together setup). It'll save you the trouble of doing a shipping exchange, etc. with GFL and my Elda should fit without problems.

I also have interior pieces cut and ready to go if you'd like to just trade out your non cut pieces for mine. I don't use my interior, so I can run a welded GFL and not worry about fitment issues with interior pieces. But I wouldn't like to have an uncut set of interior pieces around the house in case I sell the car and ever need to undo the rollbar mod.

PM me if interested...

mikegarrison

AFAIK, this is the first time one of these bars has been tested in an actual rollover. Back when Elda was selling them I asked them if one of their customers had ever rolled, and I was told that to the best of their knowledge it had never happened.

Good thing you had your top up. Rolling into sand or mud with just a bar but no top is a huge concern. It's one reason I decided to go for a hardtop, even though previously I used to prefer running top-down on the track.

FormulaRedline

Yeah, glad you're ok Clark. And look at that roll bar sticking through the top! I guess it really does work.

Considering you just rolled it....the car looks great! Fix it up and get back out there, don't have to be afraid to scuff it up any longer anyway!

Clark

Thanks everyone for your sympathy and well-wishes. The car actually held up really amazingly. I have significant damage to the passenger quarter panel, and minor fender and door damage. The soft top is totally trashed of course, though it did keep the gravel out of my mouth and eyes (mostly). Also, the windshied frame is damaged, but only across the top, I thinkt he A-pillars are undamaged.

I have no idea how much the bar played in all that vs. the stock hoops would have (they weren't present), but the bar is perfect. No deformation or movement at all.

As for the brake failure, it was right where the rubber line joins the banjo fitting at the caliper. If I had to hazard a guess, I suppose it is just fatigued from lots of track miles, so lots of heat, as well as dozens and dozens of brake changes. Of course, in changing brakes, though I never let the caliper hang from the line, sometimes I balance it up on the suspension arm and it falls. I've never seen damage to the line, but it must have been weakened just enough.

Oh, and FormulaRedline, I actually spent the rest of Saturday trying to find parts to fix my brakes. Had I been able to fix them with complete confidence, I would have been back on the track on Sunday.

pantyraider

That's pretty amazing , the car looks pretty good for having been rolled over! Glad you're ok, and it looks like you're in good spirits

If you had just went straight off would you have enough room to slow the car down before the wall?

Clark

I'm not sure about that one. The gravel there is really deep and soft, so there's a pretty good chance that I would have stopped before the tire barrier, or at least hit it softly.

The funny thing about this one though was that it wasn't like I was trying to catch a slide rather than going off straight. The way the brakes went I guess I just didn't have enough time to process that information and come up with a course of action before my brain and hands turned in for the corner (if you look in the picutres, I pretty much turned in right where I always would).

Thanks for the encouragement. Right now, my spirits are as good as my wife is allowing them to be.

alejo

lol - that's why they say "Happy Wife, Happy Life"

JustJustin

I did not see any airbag deployment...are they removed or disabled? Also, you drove the 3+ hours back to Chicago afterwards? The reason for my questions, is I attended a NASA HPDE there last year, and was a bit humbled by the real intensity of the track (nothing happened), and have been thinking about safety equipment should I pursue going back.

Glad you are OK...send us some more pics/specs on the car (ideally before the failure, or after repairs) so we can see your setup.

-Justin

mikegarrison

If there is no frontal impact, there should be no airbag deployment.

Clark

Yes, Mike has it exactly right. Not only was there no frontal impact, but the actual forces on myself and my passenger in this case were pretty minimal, with little force through the harness (no bruises or even slight soreness due to the belts.

The belts I have are the Schroth Profi-asm 4 point harness. This harness has an anti-submarine feature where there is a bit of extra length material sewn into the inboard shoulder belt (the shoulder that wouldn't have a belt in a standard 3 point). The sewing is supposed to rip part in a hard frontal impact, giving your body some rotation to keep the lap belt loaded the whole time of the impact. In this roll-over, this sewing didn't deploy either, so really there wasn't that much force on us during this incident.